Entries Tagged 'Wannabe chef' ↓

Family dinner – New York

Look Mother – Brussels sprouts!!

Brussel's sprouts!
Cooked for Cousin Grant on Sunday night (no sprouts!) – I felt so tiny next to his giant oven! Kumara, bacon & feta salad went down a treat!

Sunday dinner at Cousin G's

Tiramisu

Made our first tiramisu since moving to San Francisco on Saturday. The only thing missing was a tiny sieve for sprinkling the cocoa on the top. Also, the egg yolks here, even though they claim to be organic and from free and happy chickens, are a kind of fluoro yellow, not the almost orange color of free range egg yolks in New Zealand.

It came out well. It had perhaps a slightly watery taste because I had to use strong plunger coffee rather than espresso. But it still tasted excellent and impressed our restaurant owner guest.

Tiramisu

I also realised when I needed the recipe for making this, that I only had my dog-eared recipe originally printed from the Internet in 1997 when Geo-cities still existed!

Tiramisu recipe

So it’s about time I put it here for safe-keeping. The original site has gone I’d say, but the recipe is nice and basic and now that I live in America, I see it’s actually from the back of the Bel Gioioso pack of mascarpone! My personal tips in perfecting this over the years – go fairly heavy-handed on the brandy (cognac gives quite a different, sweeter flavor that I’m not so keen on), use 3 shots of espresso making up about a cup of coffee liquid, and definitely make it at least 24 hours in advance for a truly alcoholic coffee hit.

Tiramisu

  • 3 eggs,  yolks and whites separated
  • 1/2 cup sugar
  • 8 oz/225g mascarpone
  • 20 sponge fingers / lady fingers
  • 1 cup espresso or strong coffee
  • 2 tbsp brandy (or Cognac)
  • Cocoa for sprinkling

Combine 3 egg yolks, 1 tbsp espresso, sugar, and brandy into a large mixing bowl – beat (electric) 2 to 3 minutes (I always give it the full beating at every stage as it ensures a smooth and fluffy filling). Add the mascarpone and beat 3 to 5 minutes until consistency is smooth.
In another bowl, combine 3 egg whites and a pinch of sugar – beat until mixture forms stiff peaks. Gently fold into mascarpone mixture.
Pour half of the remaining cup of espresso into a flat dish, dip one side of each sponge finger in coffee, and layer on bottom of serving dish, coffee side down. Spread 1/2 the mascarpone mixture on top and sprinkle with cocoa. Repeat once more. (The original recipe seemed to indicate that you could achieve 3 layers, but with the dish I use (oblong) and the size of one packet of sponge fingers, 2 layers works fine.)

Refrigerate for at least 24 hours.

Orange Kitchen San Francisco

Had our first proper cook-up and friends over for dinner last night. Spent rather a lot of the weekend sourcing port, pork shoulder, purple cabbage and a flame proof casserole but we did! Also reunited with the deliciously soft potato buns.

Wa la – pulled pork buns with caramelized onions and coleslaw. A tried and tested favourite but we haven’t cooked for Bev and Dan in ages so they hadn’t had it yet and it was a good option to make with not many cooking appliances, dishes and cutlery!

Labor Day dinner

It’s Labor Day here in the States but we were caught out and didn’t plan to have today off. Plus it’s a big meeting day with the team in New Zealand. No matter – off to New York later in the week so will just swap our day off for then!

Jam Off 2011 is over & won

Jam Off 2011 has been and gone – a great crowd this year at the New Dowse in Lower Hutt as part of the Craft 2.0 fair with Important Judges, An MC, and A Rival With Pink Hair … here’s how it went down (& here’s where it all started last year).

We started out the morning by getting the competition box out of the pantry and blind tasting the 4 contenders with Mother and Father who’d travelled down especially for the event.

Jamoff competition day

We strapped The Mister and his jam into the back of the 4WD, perfect for a trip out of the city and up the valley.

Jam-off 2011

Judging was taken very seriously by Al Brown (of Logan Brown fame) and Kelda Hains (Nikau Gallery Cafe).

Jam-off 2011

There was a public tasting where the many supporters could try the various jams and leave their tasting stick in front of the jar they liked the best, while the judges decided on the top 5 for the public competition. The Mister had a jar in the line up and it seemed to collect a few sticks. It was great to see so many people getting into it!

Jam-off 2011

The winner of the public competition was Don from Lower Hutt with some secretive plum jam that he was quite reluctant to tell anyone about – however he seemed pretty chuffed to win – the judges swayed by his use of a good old Agee jar!

Next up was a the competition between these 2 – a do-over of their ‘little’ competition last year!

Jam-off 2011

A few nerves behind the scenes

Jam-off 2011

A bit of ‘mine’s better than yours’ talk to put each other off … while the judges collaborated in the background …

Jam-off 2011

 

The the winner was announced – The Mister!

Jam-off 2011 Winner

Then there was the People’s Choice Award … The Mister’s jam got the most sticks!!! He was ecstatic!

Jam-off 2011

But was disqualified!! WAAAAA – he objected!

Jam-off 2011

The judges decided that there were just too many people from Xero there and that there was some conspiracy afoot to get the most sticks placed in front of his jar of jam – not true! People loved his jam!

A great-spirited afternoon and The Mister and Mrs Jam-off are still good friends.

Jam-off 2011

Thanks friends, family, colleagues, ex-colleagues, board members, cafe owners and strangers who came along to take part and support The Mister. And if you were lucky enough to be given a jar of this year’s jam, treasure it if you’ve got any left, it’s award-winning stuff!

Jam-off 2011

Feijoa muffins

Feijoas are coming into season and they’re currently at Moore Wilson’s for $8.95 per kg – if you’re like me and grew up in a country town on a quarter acre section with a feijoa hedge running down the drive you’ll have memories of many feijoa-based activities and dishes from your childhood … cringing as you bit the top off to squeeze the pulp into your mouth after picking up a sun-warmed one from the grass by the hedge, eating so many until you got a tummy ache; Sunday night feijoa crumble; cutting and scooping them into jars in the garage with a bit of sugar and water and getting Mother to buy the delicious preserve for 50c; crawling around under the hedge picking them all up, rotten ones and all so Father could mow the lawn.

All this means it feels so wrong to pay $8.95 per kg for them but I guess these city folk have missed out! One quick hint to Father last week and hopefully for about the same price paid to the courier a 5kg box arrived to work over night – YAAYYYY!

There’s a huge bowl of them in the kitchen plus some in the fridge to slow down ripening for later and the house smells of feijoas. We’ve made feijoa crumble already. I’ve had success with friands in the past (and when looking back noticed the price jump of a dollar per year!)

Today I took my belief that ‘feijoas are a suitable substitute for bananas’ to a new level – they’ll be alright made into muffins won’t they? … errr … maybe a bit runny …

Feijoa muffin makings

The answer is yes! Good texture, not too sour (given that they’re much tarter than bananas) and tastes of feijoa – roll on afternoon tea time!

Feijoa muffins

Jam Off 2011 details

Easter weekend rapidly approaches and so does Jam Off 2011 featuring The Mister’s latest batch of jam against Mrs Jam Off plus a whole lot of other competitors in an open competition – attracted so much attention last year it’s gone public!

The Mister & Mrs Jam-Off were in the paper a couple of weeks ago promoting the event.

“I don’t want to make elitist jams, I’d rather make them for the people.”

Jam-off in the paper

Details:

  • Saturday 23rd April 2011
  • Part of Craft 2.0 at the Dowse Art Museum, 45 Laings Road, Lower Hutt
  • Craft 2.0 runs from 10.00am – 3.00pm
  • Jam Off starts at 2.00pm with the announcement of finalists in Jam Off 2011 after a private short-listing session with the judges
  • There’s a head to head judged competition between The Mister’s and Mrs Jam-Off’s jams, a judged competition for the finalists and a public vote from all entrants for a People’s Choice Award.

The Jam Off blog has got loads of information on it:

  • Read about the judges
  • Find out who all the contestants are
  • Read some of the blog posts contestants have put forward about what they’re making & other preparatory snippets.

I guess we better get the competition box down from it’s resting place on the top shelf of the pantry and see which jam is going to be submitted …

Competition box of jam

Our Nikau kedgeree

Mother and Father were are in town this weekend and we wanted to try something different for dinner at home having been out on Thursday night. We were at Nikau for breakfast so decided to have a go at Nikau kedgeree – The Mister snapped a photo on his phone and used it that night as lead chef.

Our Nikau kedgeree

Smelled great & looked like the real thing when it was done. Important to scratch through the spice shoe-box for cardamon and fennel seeds and toast them and crush them up (although years past their expiry date I thought I could detect a depth of flavour in the curry layer of the dish!)

Our Nikau kedgeree

A new family favourite I think – we all had a couple of servings each. Thanks Nikau – we promise to actually buy a tea towel soon!

Our Nikau kedgeree

Passion fruit indulgence

My Hamilton friend promised me passion fruit from his vine this year if he had a crop with some to spare. Must’ve been a bumper crop because a couple of days ago at work a box turned up with way more than I ever expect he’d send.

Passionfruit

And they’re huge!

We had a delicious passion fruit week.

First up just eating them straight up – that’s indulgence nowadays that was unheard of when I was a kid when there were easily enough around to have 2 or 3 whenever you wanted, for free (obviously no idea where Mother got them from or how much they cost but I’m sure it was less than the $20-odd a kg they are these days at Moore Wilson’s).

One of our weekend lunches was a passion fruit smoothie, chokka with passion fruit, not just one each.

Passionfruit

We checked when we were at Moore Wilson’s and indeed they were $18.95/kg and much smaller.

Passionfruit

Then 2 nights of a kind of deconstructed cheese cake, well, passion fruit (lots of them) with cheesecake cream.

Passionfruit

YUM. Thanks Hamilton friend 🙂

Potato salad

Tonight we had meat and 2 veg – not a very frequent occurrence in this house but it’s potato salad season so we rustled up a steak and some beans to go with it. I have to say I make a very good potato salad (ahem) so I thought I’d share my recipe.

  • Half tub plain cottage cheese (the 200/250g tub)
  • 2 decent dsp creamy egg mayo
  • 2 spring onions
  • 6 small potatoes ( just a bit bigger than golf balls)
  • Salt & pepper

Cook the potatoes whole, in their skins about an hour before you’re ready to eat – we like the red skinned potatoes but any dug straight from the garden or with a bit of supermarket dirt on them claiming to be ‘new’ will do. Drain and leave on the bench to cool.

Just before you’re ready to eat, make the salad. Finely chop the spring onions and put them in the bowl that you’ll mix the salad in. Chop the potatoes carefully to keep as much skin on the potatoes as possible – it’ll likely tear and pull away but just be patient. I cut the potatoes length-wise then twice across so that each potato ends up in 6 perfectly mouth-sized pieces (well, my mouth).

Make the dressing (I supposed you’d call it). If you’re lucky enough to shop at Moore Wilson’s or somewhere else that does the funky looking ‘skinny’ range – get a tub of that cottage cheese. Not for it’s slimming properties (if that’s what the skinny even refers to) but because of it’s excellent texture and taste.

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Put half a tub of cottage cheese and 2 generous spoonfuls of egg mayo into a small mixing bowl.

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Give it a good stir up with the spoon until it smooths out a bit. It’s at this point I do the smell test – not sure how to explain it but it’s a thing I do with coleslaw dressing as well – take a whiff – I should smell *slightly* more mayo than it does cottage cheese, but you should be able to smell both. Add a decent pinch of rock salt and a few grinds of pepper.

Pour it onto the chopped potatoes and push the spoon right underneath to the spring onions and turn the lot over a few times rather than stirring it so that the potatoes and skins stay fairly well intact and joined – careful not to (as I say to The Mister when he helps me bake) ‘bash it all to bits’!

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Eat it straight away, at room temperature. YUM. (Probably serves 3 easily or 2 if you like to go back for more!)

Homemade granola

I realise granola is probably not as good for you as mueseli but it’s so tasty and sweet and when living in New York I rather enjoyed it as snack or with a pot of yogurt as a lunch option. I came across this great picture and recipe in the Martha Stewart Living magazine I got for Christmas and thought I would give it a go … when I finally tracked down coconut flakes and a supply of maple syrup at the Beach Road Deli in Paekakariki!

marthagranola

Lined up the ingredients: oil, maple syrup, salt, cinnamon, brown sugar, oats, pecans and coconut flakes

Making granola

Mixed it all up

Making granola

Spread it in the baking pan

Making granola

Baked it in the oven stirring often

Making granola

Cooled it

Making granola

Popped it in an air-tight container

Making granola

And my god it’s YUM. Sweet and biscuity and all kinds of bad! Here’s the recipe on marthastewart.com